Thesis on "Innovation in History Impact and Change Youtube Creation of a New World Community"

Quoted Instructions for "Innovation in History Impact and Change Youtube Creation of a New World Community" Assignment:

The topic of this research paper is some innovation in history that has had lasting change or impact.

The topic chosen is YouTube - and how it has created new global communities around the world. Not from the perspective of new technologies, because the technologies already existed - the networks, the communications, etc. Rather, by creating a common addressable place where everyone in the world who has access to a computer can access, was a simple idea, but one that has had revolutionary impact in a number of different ways - connecting people - making people film directors - publishers - etc.

The research paper should be 2500 words excluding the annotated bibliography which should be divided into primary and secondary resource sections and ideally have at least 5 primary and secondary sources. As YouTube is so new, it will not be possible to have 5 primary sources. There should be 5 secondary sources.

One of the most important sources is the Kansas State University Anthropolgy class study on Digital Enthnography = under Dr. Michael Wesch. Each student focused on a different aspect of the impact of YouTube and presented their findings. Dr. Wesch also gave an talk at the Library of Congress on the topic that is an interesting start point on the overal subject of this research.

The BRIEF:

"Innovation suggests creative new approaches to any facet of life. Students might explore innovation in artistic or musical forms, for example, by looking at the rise of jazz. The important aspect of any National History Day research project is to situate the topic in the historical context. What was happening in the society that supported the rise of jazz at this particular point in time? Another way to extend the topic would be to follow the impact of jazz on society through time, e.g., on the African American community or subsequent music forms. "

Changes in political, social or religious institutions or arrangements might also be considered innovations, as new ways to respond to problems facing society. For example, the establishment of the United States of America, the *****Cultural Revolution***** in China, the development of

settlement houses in America and Europe, or the Protestant Reformation could all be topics for NHD this year. As always, the theme is broad enough to include topics from any period of history and from any part of the world. Whatever topics they choose, however, students must remember to address the theme and place their projects in history."

Possible Project Ideas

October 29, 2009

Idea #1 The selling and spreading of political movements on YouTube. In years gone by, people have had to spread their ideas through mediums of speeches, radio, monuments, even paintings. In most recent decades, political campaigning was mostly through television. In the most recent election in America, the internet and YouTube in particular played a major role and many people were surprised. Throughout the world, YouTube is the major medium now for all kinds of political and religious movements to spread their messages. Instead of hearing the message interpreted or presented by others, you hear the message on YouTube unedited. There are many examples and much commentary about the millions of people persuaded now through YouTube instantly about political views.

Idea #2 YouTube: A new world communities. Through all the great bandwidth, networks and servers around the world, YouTube has turned into a huge global forum where anyone with internet access can communicate with anyone else face to face regardless of distance. Members communicate regularly from every part of the globe and are celebrating together, playing music, laughing, learning, building causes across many boundaries. With the innovation of YouTube, the course of history has been changed. People are connected by this new form of communication in new movements who never before would have met or united. It is eradicating international boundaries.

Idea #3 *****“ The story of the phenomenal invention of YouTube. YouTube is only four years old and it is a simple story of the ideas of three guys who worked at PayPal had an idea. But it is an important history to understand because it happened so quickly *****“ and it involved $165 billion dollars as it was sold to Google and so many millions of people around the world. It changed the way people communicate. It is the story of a new business model that changed who is behind the camera and who is front of the camera and it created a new economy at the same time that did not exist before making $15 million dollars a month in advertising.

Idea #4 *****“ Anonymous People: how YouTube enables the world to speak powerfully and anonymously. Through YouTube, people now have the ability to publish any kind of artwork, film, political statements, literature, pictures anonymously. People can use their own names or false names. They can be who they are or they can be someone entirely different. No one will know. People can reach the audience of the whole of the world in an instant. In history, this capability has not existed before.

Idea #5 - YouTube*****s Transformation of the Film Industry. Prior to YouTube people could watch television, go to the cinema, or to some extent watch film on the internet. With YouTube, you can watch any movies, TV program, documentaries, sports event, someone*****s home movie made in Timbuktu at any time you wish. In addition, you can join and converse with communities of people who are interested in the same category material including the film maker. The price is pretty record breaking in history as well: it*****s free to anyone with access to the internet. This also means that a person in any part of the world could obtain an education on-line.

Final Topic Choice

Wednesday September 9, 2009

The short list of possible topics I chose for the project on Innovation in History were Ebay, iTunes or MP3s players, Fast Food and YouTube. I think that each of these inventions has had an impact on history. In looking closely at iTunes, the references about this amazing musical invention was more about an evolution of many different types of technology that suddenly became the MP3 player. Apple*****s creation of the iTunes was ingenious, but difficult to pinpoint on its own as an invention without giving credit to a lot of the MP3 components that led up to it at the same time. Also, there is not much history written about the social or cultural impact of this invention. Because there will be more technology to follow, what it*****s legacy will be is not so clear. The creation of EBay was one person*****s idea. In reading more about this, it was more one person*****s idea developed into a something like an on-line garage sale market place that became successful. It is not clear how much innovation was involved, how much it changed history or how many reference sources could be used to make up a strong research project.

The invention of fast food was a major innovation in food in the history of time created in America that found its way around the world. It definitely has had major impact on the culture of the way people eat, people*****s health, diet, and the whole food industry. There are many reference materials available about this topic that would be sufficient to build a research project around. It is a topic that makes one stop to think about how we got to where we are. We hardly recognize where our food comes from anymore because it is so unnatural. The price of a fast food meal full of unhealthy fat and hundreds of calories and sugar can be dollars less than the cost of something healthy which does not seem right. How did we get here? In the end I did not choose this topic not because it is not interesting to me, but because I work for a fast food place and a lot of what is said about the invention of fast food is negative and I don*****t want to be negative about a company that employs me.

The topic I chose is YouTube. There are not many references for this topic and it will not be an easy topic to research but I think it is actually one of the most important innovations we have had in the world for some time. YouTube is only a few years old but it has already over 100 million video clips viewed and 65,000 new videos are uploaded on YouTube every 24 hours by people all over the world. YouTube has created instant groups of people around the world sharing ideas, political views and rallying people around common causes. Some of the things that people rally around are as simple as a 60 second clip of humor. A lot of film is about music. Never before in history has common man been able to share this medium instantly, unedited and uncensored with free access to all. There has been a lot of political reaction to this invention as well. It has been blocked by countries such as China, Morocco and Thailand who are concerned about some of its content. I believe it is a revolutionary step in human communication that is a very good topic for Innovation in History.

You Tube: The Creation of a New World Community

Process Paper

Why I chose this topic:

Considering the time I spend on YouTube weekly watching movies, music, and learning horse training techniques, I already had an interest in this innovation and was keen to learn more. This topic is also a very relevant topic to my generation as the highest percentage of YouTube users are under 28 years old. As YouTube is only a few years old, I liked the idea that I would probably not have to go to the library and pour over lots of old books to do the research required for the project.

How I conducted my research:

I initially thought that YouTube would be a fairly easy topic because I am a first hand regular user and I thought I knew something about it. I found out quite quickly that it was more difficult that I imagined. First, there are only a few primary sources - the three founders of YouTube, primarily. Therefore, almost all sources are secondary. I found myself doing considerable web searching through irrelevant material. There are only a handful of books published with reference to the innovation of YouTube. Most of the information is in web media such as newsletters, articles, and documentary film. I saved as favorites all of these sites, printed the most important and went back and watched the most important films several times to do my research.

How I created and developed my exhibit:

For my exhibit I decided to write a paper as the explanation of how YouTube is an innovation of historical significance and something that requires thoughtful explanation. Photographs, diagrams, graphics and other means do not seem appropriate for me to be able to explain what I have learned about the ways YouTube has affected our history. I have been keeping index cards of the main points found in videos and a file of important points from published articles. Every time I use YouTube I am thinking about and looking at how it has changed history and making notes for my research paper on index cards. All of these put together will form my final project paper.

How my project relates to the theme.

My project relates to the NHD theme in its creation of global communities that have never before existed and otherwise would not exist without its invention. These communities might be made up of fifty-five people who happen to share the same interest living in far flung corners of the world. These communities might also be made up of millions of people who share a laugh at the same 2 minute home movie clip. This innovation also revolutionized the industries of publishing and film production. In an instant, YouTube made people everywhere film producers and published authors with a worldwide audience. YouTube also created a new timeline in history by creating instantaneous publishing of material and erasing time scheduling by enabling people to watch what they want, when they want 24x7, anywhere in the world. (494 Words)

Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources

Steve, Chad and Jawed, *****The Real History of YouTube in 3 Minutes***** Available at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PazFKj_aIpA&NR=1. November 22,

2009.

The three creators of YouTube give a brief history of their *****broadcast yourself***** invention in a garage in this film. They describe the timeline of their invention, each of their roles in the process, how they overcame stumbling blocks when no one visited their site, and their growth from streaming 3 million to 100 million videos per day. It ends with the sale of YouTube to Google for $1.6 billion and 65% of all traffic for video sites and explaining that YouTube is that but so much more. These are critical points of view to understand for this paper.

Secondary Sources

Barack, Lauren. "Library of Congress Shares Nation's Treasures on You Tube." Library. Print.

Lauren Barack is a freelance journalist living in Manhattan. Her work has appeared in Parenting magazine, Newsweek, the St. Petersburg Times, The Independent (London) and Variety, among other publications. Barack turned to journalism after a stint in comedy television.

Boutin, Paul. *****A Video History of You Tube.***** Web.

Paul Boutin writes about networks for the NY Times and covers the iPhone, Apple social networks, and digital media for VentureBeat. He also contributes essays to Wired and does book reviews for the Wall Street Journal. He was a senior ***** and editor for Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag from 2006 to 2008.

Cloud, John. "The Gurus of You Tube." Time. Print.

John Cloud is a staff ***** for Time magazine, where he has worked since 1997. Before coming to Time, he was a senior ***** at Washington City Paper. He describes the background of the founders and creators which is an important understanding of the innovators.

Douglas, Nick. *****YouTube*****s Dark Side: how the video sharing site stifles

creativity***** Slate. Print

Nick Douglas is a technology ***** and a humorist who is known for his sarcastic viewpoint in the world of tech journalism. He writes for Wired, Slate, and the Huffington Post and other on-line publications. Douglas has over 9,000 followers on Twitter which makes him one of the top 200 users on the site. He lives in New York City. Visit his website www.toomuchnick.com

Duffield, Katy S. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim: YouTube Creators

(Innovators). San Diego: KidHaven Publisher 2008

This book is written for young audiences to tell the history of the YouTube innovation. It covers the background of the founders working at PayPal and how they were just simple guys with an idea who stuck with their idea to make it work.

Haridakis, Dr.Paul. "Social media and presidential election: Scientists examine

impact of You Tube, MySpace." Web.

Dr. Paul Haridakis, professor and scholar in the impact of media on the US political landscape investigates the impact of social media*****s impact on the presidential election. Haridakis, focused on the role of You Tube in elections, an important perspective on the historical impact of YouTube. .

Giuffo, John. *****Ten Videos that made YouTube famous.***** Available at:

http//www.forbs.com/2007/04/30/youtube-vidoes-hits. 9/19/2009

In November 2005, when YouTube first started posting videos it was mostly a place for posting and seeing homemade video clips. As the popularity of this website grew users began to put up all kinds of postings old and new TV shows, comedies, music video, political adds, and homemade documentary. This article shows YouTube*****s big success and how it gives everyone in the world a chance to share there videos without control, that anyone can make a video, post it online and become an overnight success.

Green, Joshua. YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Cambridge:

Polity Publishing 2009

In this book the author discusses how YouTube is the first mass platform for user-created video and how it relates to wider transformations in culture, society and the economy. The book talks about the public debates surrounding the site, demonstrating how it is central to struggles for authority and control in the new media environment. The author discusses how YouTube is being used by the media industries, by audiences and amateur producers, and by particular communities of interest, and the ways in which these uses challenge existing ideas about cultural *****˜production***** and *****˜consumption*****. It provided an important overall understanding of my topic.

*****Guardian column: The YouTube campaign.***** Available at:

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/01/29/guardia-column-the-youtube-

campaign/. 01/28/2007

This column is about the U.S. Presidential Candidate and how they use YouTube to campaign for the White House. It states *****the revolution will not be televised. It will be YouTubed, It also states that more than 30% of voters under the age of 35 will be using the internet as their mane source of political news.

Jardoe, Greg. YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day. Indianapolis: Wiley

Publishing 2009

This book is a detailed guide to help people create and implement winning video strategies on YouTube with step-by-step instructions and key steps and techniques. It is written in the hour a day format to make it simple and straightforward to learn many tips on how to make videos and avoid mistakes based on the authors four years of experience. It includes case studies which demonstrate how to analyze marketing results and also has a long list of very current additional resources which were helpful is sorting through and finding relevant sources. .

Levy, Frederick. 15 Minutes of Fame: Becoming a Star in the YouTube Revolution.

New York: Penguin Group 2008

This is a book written by a Hollywood guru to advice users and video makers about how to make and share their videos about their most interesting, exciting and embarrassing moments to be watched by people from all over the world. It also explores YouTube*****s social and networking aspects and how people can connect with that through the films they make. It is a guide to help people get their material captured quickly on their phones and cameras and advice about what will make people want to watch their film for their moment of fame.

Miller, Michael. YouTube 4 You. Que Publishing: Washington, D.C. 2009

YouTube 4You appears to be a perfect book for a person to get very rapidly up to speed on YouTube. Like other work by this author, it is an impressive volume that is highly rated by its users.

Also, like other work done by Michael Miller, this too is an impressing work. It is very clear that the author knows what he is talking about, and he is good in making difficult things easy to understand. Chapters 1 to 11 are great introduction 4 everyone and viewers, on how to create and share videos including legal issues!

Chapters 12 to 16, which is 4 Advanced Users goes beyond introduction and helps one you join the YouTube Community, adding your Blog, and even profiting from your videos as well as how to troubleshoot. This book was excellent, brief and to the point, with pictures and examples that helped me become proficient with YouTube usage.

YouTube Report 2009. *****YouTube is Part of Three Key Trends***** September 7, 2009

Web.

YouTube for Business is a 111 page analysis of YouTube Report 2009 data to help businesses understand how YouTube can affect their businesses positively. Each week a new chapter is delivered to study the impact and opportunities that YouTube has come to offer. This section is about increasing bandwidth around the world, user generated content, and social networking sites and gave me an important insight into how the communication network side of YouTube was enabled.

Pondera, Patrick. The YouTube Reader. Oslo: National Library of Sweden 2009

This book describes YouTube as epitomizing the possibilities of digital culture. With more than 70, 000,000 unique users a month and approximately 80,000,000 videos online, YouTube have the richest repository of popular culture in modern time. As the fastest growing site in the history of the Web, it describes YouTube*****s new opportunities for amateur video, political campaigning, entertainment formats, and viral marketing and clip culture that have far outpaced both cinema and television. The YouTube Reader is one of the first full-length books to explore YouTube as an industry, archive, and cultural form.

Savoie, Hillary. *****John McCain gets BarackRoll*****d: Authorship, Culture, and Community on YouTube.***** Available at http://youtubeandthe2008election.jitp2.net/paper/hsavoie. 4/17/09

This cultural study by a doctoral student at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute analyzes the YouTube video *****John McCain gets BarackRoll*****d***** as an example of a new media of individual expression that can be used to support and create community action among large groups of people *****“ an important understanding of the new global communities created by YouTube. .

Susan Boyle phenomena: redefining beauty, grace, and success? By Ben Quinn.

Perf. Susan Boyle. Video clip.

The video clip of Boyle winning over skeptical judges and a cynical crowd with a rendition of *****I Dreamed a Dream***** from the musical *****Les Miserables***** has been viewed more than 40 million times. It is an important example of how quickly fame can be brought globally and overnight with this new innovation.

Wesch, Michael Dr. *****Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University.***** Available

at: http://mediatedcultures.net. 3/9/2007

The YouTube project at Kansas State University was a class project for the Spring 2007 semester of a class called Anthropology 522: Digital Ethnography. Each student in the class was responsible for creating their own 3 to 5 minute video of an agreed topic about the YouTube community. This project is critical to my research for this project as it has become the most famous and important study of YouTube in existence today.

Woog, Adam. YouTube: Great Idea Chicago: Norwood House Press 2008

The book begins with a brief history of video sharing on the Web and then goes on to discuss the three young men who came up with the idea for YouTube after working together at PayPal, and what getting the start-up off the ground entailed. Details of how the site works (and makes money) are explained as well as questions of copyright and censorship. The book was an important read because sets out ways YouTube has changed society, including its effect on the 2008 election.

YouTube Report 2009. *****YouTube is Part of Three Key Trends***** September 7, 2009

Web.

YouTube for Business is a 111 page analysis of YouTube Report 2009 data to help businesses understand how YouTube can affect their businesses positively. Each week a new chapter is delivered to study the impact and opportunities that YouTube has come to offer. This section is about increasing bandwidth around the world, user generated content, and social networking sites and gave me an important insight into how the communication network side of YouTube was enabled.